Protesters want Bill 23 stopped

A flash protest against potential Greenbelt development took place Saturday morning at the junction of Brant Street and North Service Road in Burlington.

The protest was the third one within 24 hours in the area, with previous protests targeting MPP Parma Gill's office in Milton and the Georgetown Mall on Friday.

Saturday's protest, organized by Stop Sprawl Halton and Environmental Defence, saw roughly 100 protesters line the intersection with signs calling for an end to Bill 23 and to save farmland.

Environmental Defence said Bill 23 (More Homes Built Faster) is a "rollback of forward-thinking municipal plans in Halton and Hamilton, and the removal of 7,400 acres of protected land from the Greenbelt to build sprawl", in a press release announcing more than 15 planned protest rallies around the province.

This week, Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward said she has "significant concerns" about Bill 23. "The potential consequences will be devastating to the environment, coordinated planning & taxpayers — downloading the costs of growth from for-profit developers to you, the taxpayer," she Tweeted on Tuesday.

But the Ford government has said the bill is needed to meet the province's plans to build 1.5 million homes over the next ten years.

The bill also makes sweeping changes to the reach of the province's 36 Conservation Authorities.

"The focus today has been to bring awareness to what we are calling the Triple Threat — the Greenbelt land grab, Bill 23 and the overruling of Halton Region's Official Plan," said organizer Kim Bradshaw.

"It is our growth plan. We decided that the 5,000 acres that were identified to be brought into the urban boundary were unnecessary. We could build within the existing boundary."

She said Premier Doug Ford disliked this and suggested he is too close to developers. "Not only did he approve the 5,000 acres, he threw in another 3,000," she said.

Crawford said the land is prime agricultural farmland "that would provide food security to Southern Ontario for decades to come".

Protesters Howard Bohan and Fionnela Crombie said they felt they had to do something to draw attention to the threat to local farmland.

"We feel like, if they do start developing on farmland, we are going to lose our watershed," Crombie said. "I think we have enough housing within urban bounds and they can meet housing needs without having to do it. You often feel helpless in this kind of situation; this was something we could do and show some support for what we believe in."

Bohan added: "Bill 23 is just going to give developers more money. They are paving over good farmland. There is lots of land that is not arable, build there."